The United States Under Trump's Second Term Seems Strangely Recognizable to Those Watching from the East

When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”

The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.

But in the year after the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”

Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.

Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.

“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”

Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.

However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’

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

A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from officials.

Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.

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

Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.

“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”

“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.

Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of 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,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”

The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.

Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.

Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.

Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”

Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”

Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad