As the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
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 has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
