When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year after the president was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled China because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
