As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping 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 lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
