When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
