When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers 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 is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
