As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that 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,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
