When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only considering what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
