When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East 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 cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
