As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year since the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, 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 while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
