When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain 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 required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
