As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
