When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
