As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on 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 presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval 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 recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
