As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
