When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing 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 purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
