As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, having fled the country due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of 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 after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
