As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called 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 vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
