When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, 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 educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
