When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad