When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed 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 hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered 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 never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
