When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered 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 never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
