When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year after the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
