When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more 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 regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
