As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year since the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US'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 Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
