When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters 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 a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
