When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives 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 hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
