When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
