When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
