As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, 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, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, 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 presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
