When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But over the past year after the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
