When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
