As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
