When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
