When the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in the US for several years, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
