As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
