When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year since the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing 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 government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
