As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled China because of pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others 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.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who 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 once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
