As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed 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.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
