As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
