When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated 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 the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil 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 added, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
