As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East 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.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
