As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor 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 makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing 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, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives 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 such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, 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, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
