When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year since the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
