As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only considering what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
