When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’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 tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
