As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “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 investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
