When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year after the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations 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 become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
