As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked 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 would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
