The United States During Trump's Second Term Feels Strangely Recognizable to Observers from China

As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I think this is a habit from China.”

Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.

But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”

Her concerns mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.

The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.

“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”

Since Trump unleashed the so-called 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 young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.

However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’

The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.

Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.

Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.

“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.

“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”

“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.

Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”

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

On Monday, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.

Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”

The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad