When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year after the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
