When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
