When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
