When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, 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 similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
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 required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
