Trump's America During the New Administration Feels Strangely Recognizable to Observers from China

As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”

The comedian, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.

However over the past year after the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”

Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.

The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, 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 diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.

“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”

Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of force.

However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Beacon Has Become 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 dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, having fled China due to pressure from officials.

Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.

“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.

His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.

“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”

“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing 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 Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.

Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.

There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.

An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad