When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, 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 the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
