The America Under Trump's Second Term Seems Oddly Familiar to Observers from China

When the standup comedian, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”

Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.

But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”

Her concerns mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.

The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.

“America is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”

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 China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.

However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’

The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.

A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from officials.

In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.

“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

His pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.

“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”

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

Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be in decline.”

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

Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.

There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.

An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad