Trump's United States During Trump's Second Term Feels Strangely Recognizable to Observers from the East

As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”

The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.

However in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”

Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.

The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.

“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”

Since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.

But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’

The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.

A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.

Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.

“That event 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 pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.

“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.

The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”

“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.

Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”

The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.

Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.

There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.

An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”

The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad