The America Under Trump's Second Term Seems Oddly Recognizable to Those Watching from the East

As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”

Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.

But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”

Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.

Trump has not been shy 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 governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.

“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”

Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.

However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’

The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.

A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled China due to harassment from officials.

Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.

“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.

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

“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”

“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.

Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”

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

On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.

Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.

An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”

The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”

Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad