As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era 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 refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
