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

When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”

Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.

But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”

Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.

Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.

“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”

Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of violence.

But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’

The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.

A former police officer, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.

Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.

“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.

His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.

“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.

Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”

“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”

The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.

On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.

There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.

An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad