When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived 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 “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
