When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since the administration 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 through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
