When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in China today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
