As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year since the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy 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 an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. 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 take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
