When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge 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 notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
