As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy 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 carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“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,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
