As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused 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 a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
