As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family 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 that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
