As the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
