As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “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 tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
