As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech 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 now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
