When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year after the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see 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, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
