When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
