As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year after the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics 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 now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
