As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, 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 the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
