When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived 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,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government 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 purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
