As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
