When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
