When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US 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. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
