When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in China now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
