As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
