When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, 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 stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China 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 by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
