As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. 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 strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in China today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
