As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
