When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years 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 the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
