When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in America for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
