As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. 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 appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, 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 making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
