When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
