When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
