When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, 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,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, 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, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’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 promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
