As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
