When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just considering what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
