When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing 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 grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, 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 the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
