When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable 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 improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
