As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year since the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without the same levels of force.
However after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled 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 its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
