The United States During the New Administration Seems Strangely Recognizable to Observers from China

As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”

The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.

But over the past year after the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”

Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.

Trump 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 temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.

“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”

Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of violence.

However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.

‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’

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

Deng Haiyan, now a CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.

In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.

“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.

Deng’s backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.

“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.

The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”

“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”

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

On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.

There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.

Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”

Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad