As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
