When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, 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 numerous scholars in the country 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. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
