When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments 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 the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
