When 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 carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor 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 am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
