As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into 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.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
