As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, 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 post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
