When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China now as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
