The United States During the New Administration Feels Oddly Recognizable to Those Watching from the East

When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”

Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.

However in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”

Her concerns mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.

Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.

“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”

Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without the same levels of force.

However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’

The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.

Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.

Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.

“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.

His pile on came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with the East.

“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.

Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”

“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.

Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”

The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.

Recently, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.

Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.

An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”

The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”

Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad