As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America for several years, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
