When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, 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 reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
