As the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
