When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people 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 America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms 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 the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
