When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
