When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
