As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America for several years, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – 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 also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
