Trump's United States During Trump's Second Term Feels Oddly Recognizable to Those Watching from China

When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”

Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's public library.

However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”

Her fears reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.

Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.

“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”

Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.

However since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’

The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.

Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.

In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.

“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.

His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.

“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.

Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”

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

Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”

The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.

On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.

There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.

An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”

Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”

Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad