When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
