When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. 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 online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
