When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
