As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US for several years, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable 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 developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
