As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see 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 perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
