As the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today 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 recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
