When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
