When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash 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 those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
