As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, 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 will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
