When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the 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.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if 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, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
