As the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed 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 the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
