When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
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 approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
