When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. 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
