As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined 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 originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
