When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed 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 those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
