As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
