As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing 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 undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, 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 after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more 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 official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
