As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying 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 Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
