When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of 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, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
