When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, 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 America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
