When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … 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, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
