When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom 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 being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
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 university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
