As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent the same levels of force.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
