When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown 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 resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, 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.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
