As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems 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,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in the country 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 the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
