As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However in the 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 understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China 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 organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
