As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
