When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled China because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
