When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe 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 although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
