When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
