When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year after the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged 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 ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse 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 dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
