As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth 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 the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
