Trump's United States Under the New Administration Feels Oddly Recognizable to Those Watching from the East

When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”

The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.

But in the year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”

Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.

The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.

“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”

Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.

However after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’

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

Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.

In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.

“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.

“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.

Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”

“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”

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

On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.

Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”

The professor observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad