When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal 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 to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
