As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree 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 today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad