As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance 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, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in China now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, 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 less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, 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 be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
