When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But in the year after the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, 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 notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
