As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” 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 the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
