The America Under the New Administration Seems Oddly Recognizable to Observers from China

When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”

Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.

However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”

Her fears mirror a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.

Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.

“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” 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 events in China decades past.”

Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though absent the same levels of force.

But after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’

The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.

Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.

Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.

“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.

“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.

Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”

“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.

Progressive Chinese, 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 post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”

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

On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.

Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.

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

The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad