As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed 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, 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,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
