When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see 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 organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel 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’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders 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 refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
