When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year since the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed 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 – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable 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 promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
