When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
