When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, 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 settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
