When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year since the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest 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’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, 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 post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
