When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
But over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy 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 bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions 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 article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
