As the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US'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 environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
