When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective 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 brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
