When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in America for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters 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 Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, 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, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
