As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis 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 notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
