As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on 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 used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
