When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after the president was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, 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,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage 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 a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
