Trump's America During the New Administration Seems Oddly Familiar to Those Watching from China

As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”

Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.

But in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”

Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.

The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.

“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”

Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.

However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’

The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.

Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America for several years, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.

In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.

“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.

His backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.

“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”

“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”

The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.

Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.

Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.

An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”

Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad