When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more 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 regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
