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

As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”

The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.

But in the year since the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on shifting sands.”

Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.

Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.

“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of 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 early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics 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, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.

But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.

‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’

The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.

A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.

Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.

“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.

Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.

“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”

“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.

Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”

The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.

On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.

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 Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”

The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad