As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai 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 democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump 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 under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
