As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year since the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands 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 of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
