As the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge 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 “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
