As the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses 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 Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, 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 significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
