When the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “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 investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
