When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
