As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved 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 public library.
But over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
