As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding 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 Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
