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

As the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”

The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.

But in the year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”

Her fears mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.

The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.

“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”

Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.

But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.

‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’

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

Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.

In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.

“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.

Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.

“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.

The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”

“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”

The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.

On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.

Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”

The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad