When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established 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 currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
