When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad