As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, 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 official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
