When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without the same levels of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US 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 seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
