As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in China today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
