When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“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 fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
