When the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” 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 … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
