When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered 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 should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
