When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
