As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, 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 Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
