When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie 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, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
