When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than 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 trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of 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 seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
