When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled 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 more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
