When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, 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 in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face 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.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
