The America During Trump's Second Term Feels Oddly Familiar to Those Watching from China

When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”

Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.

However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”

Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.

Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.

“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”

Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.

But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’

The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.

Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.

In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.

“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.

His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.

“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”

“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.

Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”

The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.

Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.

There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”

The professor notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”

Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad