When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
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 China. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America 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 more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
