When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
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 his homeland. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
