When the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
