Trump's United States During Trump's Second Term Feels Strangely Familiar to Observers from China

When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”

The comedian, 39, resided 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 “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.

But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”

Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.

The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.

“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”

Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.

However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’

The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.

A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.

Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.

“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.

His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.

“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.

The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”

“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.

Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”

The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.

On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have made some investors concerned that America is entering 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 required they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.

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

Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad