As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only considering what humor to tell. 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 online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse 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 numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
