As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to 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 American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of force.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’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 currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
