As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year after the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
