When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But in the year since the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, 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 improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
