When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood 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 with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
