As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
