When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
