As the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year since the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
