When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” 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 the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in the US for several years, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
