When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
