When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, 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 somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
