When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
