The United States During Trump's Second Term Feels Strangely Familiar to Observers from the East

When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”

The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.

But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”

Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.

Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.

“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”

Since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.

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

‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’

The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China 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 his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from officials.

In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.

“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.

His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.

“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.

The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”

“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.

Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”

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

On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.

Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”

The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”

Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad