When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, 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 bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
