When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring 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 notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, 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 more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
