As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems 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.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept 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 “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
