When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge 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,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals 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 Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
