When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
