Trump's America During Trump's Second Term Feels Oddly Familiar to Observers from the East

As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”

Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.

But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”

Her concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.

Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.

“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”

Since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.

However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’

The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.

Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.

In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.

“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.

Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.

“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.

Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”

“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”

The government's purchase of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.

On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.

Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.

An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”

The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad