When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China 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 via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
