As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled China because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
