When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
