As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, 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 for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
