As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost 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 democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
