When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
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 embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China now as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America 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 America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
