When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “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 people who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking 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,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government 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 declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
