As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But in the year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
