As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad