When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
