As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year after the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that 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 bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
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, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
