As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't 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 after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
