The America During the New Administration Feels Strangely Recognizable to Those Watching from the East

When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”

The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.

However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, 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.”

Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.

Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.

“The United States is undergoing an era of societal upheaval,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”

Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.

However after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’

The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.

Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from officials.

Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.

“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.

Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.

“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”

“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”

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

On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.

There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.

An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”

Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”

Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad