As the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere 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 the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
