As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
