When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation 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”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept 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,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
