As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “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 investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted 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, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
