When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year after the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, 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 – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
