When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit 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 settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding 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 environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
