As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, 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 president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
