When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still 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 they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
