When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
