When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she is not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she said, stating 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, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
