The America During Trump's Second Term Seems Strangely Recognizable to Those Watching from the East

As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”

Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.

However in the year after the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”

Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.

Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.

“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”

Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.

But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’

The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.

A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.

In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.

“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

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

“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.

Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”

“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.

Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”

The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.

On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.

Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.

An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”

The professor notes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad