As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America for several years, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “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, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
