As the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned 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 resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
