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

As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”

Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.

But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”

Her fears mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.

Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.

“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”

Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.

But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’

The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.

A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.

Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.

“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.

Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.

“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”

“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”

The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.

On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous 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 China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad