As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
