When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
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 – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
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 more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
