As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
