As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing 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 used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
