As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. 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 economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
