When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than 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, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America 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 blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
