As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
