As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, 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 for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, 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 US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
