When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
