As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more 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 yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
