When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for 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 significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
