As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused 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 should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
