As the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year after the president was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge 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, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
