When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed 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 – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, 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 private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
