As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him 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 governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
