As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this 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 state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
