When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
