As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out 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 after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, 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 deemed essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
