When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in 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 material where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start 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 cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
