As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
But over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, 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 an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become 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, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
