As the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi 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 became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government'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, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
