When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
