When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters 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 Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
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 have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
