When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
