As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
