When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
