When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, 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 risky. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, 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, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, 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 repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
