When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens 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 dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, 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 sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
