When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against 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 internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated 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 all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. 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 these days than say anything bad
