As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still 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 required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
