When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, 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 less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing 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 government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
