As the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit 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 dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“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, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad