As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of 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 attempting to rally 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 the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
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, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
