As the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
