When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
