When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
