When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning 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 speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
