When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
