As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era 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 refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, 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 the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
