As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year after the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
