As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't 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, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon 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 the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
