As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
