When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
