When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, 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 who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
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 vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
