When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage 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.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
