As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
