As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … 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 well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
