As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
