As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be 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 its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
