As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
