As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
