As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi 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 political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who 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 divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
