As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said 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 students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
