As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of force.
However after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US'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 promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
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. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
