As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in America for several years, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about 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, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
