As the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, 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 after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
