When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
