When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in America for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
