When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after the president was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
