As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become 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 private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
