As the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar 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 educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
