Trump's United States During the New Administration Seems Oddly Recognizable to Observers from China

As the standup comedian, an emerging performer, 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 openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”

The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.

But in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”

Her fears mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.

The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.

“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”

Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of force.

However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’

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

A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from officials.

In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.

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

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

“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.

Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”

“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.

Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”

The government's acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.

Recently, the US government stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.

Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis 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 observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad