When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained 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. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
