When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year after the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America 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 observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
