As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted 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. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
