When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions 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 the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established 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 it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
