As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
