When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers 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 those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil 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 numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
