When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many 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, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, 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 about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
