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

As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit from China.”

Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.

However over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”

Her fears reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.

The president 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 the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.

“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”

Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.

But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’

The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.

Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.

Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted 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. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.

“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.

His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.

“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”

“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.

Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”

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

On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.

There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.

Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad