As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … 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 early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis 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 many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
