When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … 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 form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
