As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest 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 once faced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
