When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
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 via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes 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 would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
