When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type 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 the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
