When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year since the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, 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 young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined 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 less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” 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 line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
