As the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
