When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country 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, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
