When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States 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 the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
