When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation 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 the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
