As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues 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 too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
