As the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “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 symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
