As the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
