When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year since the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk 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 faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “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 more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
