As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America for several years, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
