Trump's America Under Trump's Second Term Feels Strangely Recognizable to Observers from China

When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”

Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.

However 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. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”

Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.

Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.

“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”

Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent equivalent degrees of force.

However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’

The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.

Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.

Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.

“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.

“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.

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

“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.

Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept 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 “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”

The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.

On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.

There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.

An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge 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.”

The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad