As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, 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 China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, 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 openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars 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 American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
