When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year after the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, 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 refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
