When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
