As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’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 investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
