As the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
