As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of 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, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
