As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
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 Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
