As the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such 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,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’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 investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn 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 startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge 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.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
