When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, 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 post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
