As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
