When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties 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 experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept 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, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US 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 including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
