The United States During Trump's Second Term Feels Oddly Recognizable to Observers from China

When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”

Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.

But in the year since the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”

Her fears reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.

The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if 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 Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”

Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of force.

However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.

‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’

The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.

Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.

In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.

“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.

His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.

“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”

“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”

The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.

On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.

Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed 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, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”

Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”

Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad