When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified 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 government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
