When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. 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 constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
