When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting 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,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
