When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
