When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
