When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, 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 also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
