As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer a ideal 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, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
