As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers 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'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … 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,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, 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 its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
