When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US 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, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
