When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, 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. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
