When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
