When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, 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 America for several years, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
