When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled the country due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
