When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
