As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
