As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “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 “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
