When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year since the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, 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, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
