As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
