When the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become 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, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
