When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of force.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
