The America During Trump's Second Term Seems Strangely Recognizable to Observers from the East

When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”

Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.

However in the year after the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”

Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.

The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.

“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”

Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.

But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’

The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.

A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.

In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.

“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

His pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.

“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”

“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”

The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.

On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.

There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.

An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”

Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad