When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
