When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
