As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But in the year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
