As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
