When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year since the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
