When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered 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, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives 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.
His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
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 it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
