As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated 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, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
