As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” 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 parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, 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 while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
