When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions 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 they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
