As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … 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 the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
