As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year since the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval 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 individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders 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 the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
