As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Ever 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 see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
