As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences 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 they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
