When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
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 understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
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 demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
