As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, 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. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
