As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year since the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
