When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
