When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
