When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year since the president was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, 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 has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of 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 divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government 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 declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. 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
