When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed 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 the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
