The America Under Trump's Second Term Feels Strangely Familiar to Those Watching from China

When the standup comedian, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”

Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.

But over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”

Her concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.

The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.

“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”

Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.

However after the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’

The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.

A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.

Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.

“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.

Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.

“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.

The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”

“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”

The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.

On Monday, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.

Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.

An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”

The professor observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”

Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad