When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations 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 America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in China now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
