When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
