As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’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 the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power 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 undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
