As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce 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 America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom 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 create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels 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 startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
