When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects 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 material where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
