When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China have viewed 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 purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled 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 across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
