As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant 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 America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, 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 reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
