When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of 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 tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
