When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, 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 undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, 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 vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
