When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, 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 vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in China 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 of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
