As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year after the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
