As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where 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, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
