As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
