As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. 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 blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
