As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although 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 China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, 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 previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
