As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer 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 constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, 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 the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
