As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges 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. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
