When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive 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 promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
