The America During the New Administration Seems Strangely Familiar to Those Watching from China

As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”

Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.

However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”

Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.

Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.

“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in the country decades past.”

Since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.

But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’

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

Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.

In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.

“This incident 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 pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.

“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.

Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”

“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.

Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”

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

Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.

Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.

An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”

The professor observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad