When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
