As the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered 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 such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America 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 China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
