As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive 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 correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
