As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, 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 China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
