When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
