When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
