As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. 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 seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
