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

As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”

Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.

However in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”

Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.

The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.

“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”

Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of force.

But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’

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

A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.

Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.

“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

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

“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.

Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”

“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”

The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.

Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.

Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”

Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”

Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad