When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government 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 US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
