When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, 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 the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
