When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’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 nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
