When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
