As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, 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 painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
