When the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge 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 “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
