Trump's America During the New Administration Seems Strangely Recognizable to Those Watching from the East

When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”

The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.

But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”

Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.

The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.

“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in China decades past.”

Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.

However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’

The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.

A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in America for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.

In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.

“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

His backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.

“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”

“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.

Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”

The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.

On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup 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 the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.

There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established 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 it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”

Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”

Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad