The United States Under the New Administration Seems Strangely Recognizable to Observers from the East

As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”

The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.

However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”

Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.

Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.

“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”

Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.

But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’

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

Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.

In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.

“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.

Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.

“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.

The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”

“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”

The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.

Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.

There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.

An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”

The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad