When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
