When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, 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 business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures 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 the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
