When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
