When the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
