As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
