As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help 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, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
