As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled 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 Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against 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 ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
