As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“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.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
