When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East 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, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
