As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year since the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “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.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
