When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year since the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
