When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
