When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
