When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives 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 never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding 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 investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
