As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America for several years, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in China now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
