When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US'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 developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
