When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing 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 the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth 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 America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, 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. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
