When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“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.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
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 Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
