When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
