As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
