As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing 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 added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
