When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
