When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought 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 has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
