When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not just considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. 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 seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
