As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars 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 US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, 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, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
