When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
