When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept 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,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, 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 mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
