When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of 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 early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
