When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year after the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China today as too,” she added, stating 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 once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
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 stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
