The America Under Trump's Second Term Seems Oddly Familiar to Observers from the East

When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”

Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.

But in the year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”

Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.

Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation'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 the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.

“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”

Ever since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of force.

However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.

‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’

The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.

Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.

In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.

“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.

Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.

“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”

“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.

Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”

The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.

Recently, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.

There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”

Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”

Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad