When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
