When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration 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 the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But since the upheaval 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 numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding 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 improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
