When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident 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 online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, 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 more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of 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,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
