As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring 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 atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
