When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
