When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 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 an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
