When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity 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 a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, 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 reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
