When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
