When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing 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 marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in America for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
