When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“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,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction 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 similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made some investors nervous 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 the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
