When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year after the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US for several years, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
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 required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
