Trump's America Under Trump's Second Term Feels Oddly Familiar to Those Watching from the East

When the standup comedian, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”

Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.

But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”

Her concerns reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.

The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.

“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”

Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see American governance 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 those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.

But since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’

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

Deng Haiyan, 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. Deng resided in the US for several years, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.

Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.

“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.

His backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.

“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.

The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”

“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.

Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”

The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.

Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.

There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”

The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad