As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year after the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing 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 government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
