As the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
