The America Under Trump's Second Term Seems Oddly Familiar to Those Watching from the East

As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”

Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.

However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”

Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.

The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.

“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”

Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.

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

‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’

The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.

A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.

In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.

“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.

“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.

The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”

“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.

Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”

The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.

Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.

Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.

An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad