As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year after the president was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … 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, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
