When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “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, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
