As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after 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 numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
