When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
But in the year after the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, 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 sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned 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, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
