As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year after the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without the same levels of force.
However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for 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.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
