When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging 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 total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
