As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction 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 comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
