When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which 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, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar 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 form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump 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 news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
