Trump's United States Under Trump's Second Term Seems Strangely Recognizable to Those Watching from the East

As the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”

Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.

But over the past year since the president returned to office again, 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 fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.

Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.

“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”

Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.

But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.

‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’

The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.

A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, 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 “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.

“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.

“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.

Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”

“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.

Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”

The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and business is often blurred.

Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.

There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”

The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor 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 suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad