When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities 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. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
