As the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year after the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
