As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would 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 the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
