When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
