As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage 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 relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. 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 became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective 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 Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
