As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed 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 China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor 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 fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
