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. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
