When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
