As the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. 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
