As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees 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 individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat 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 “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
