As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
