As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she is not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “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,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
