When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
