As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
