The America During the New Administration Feels Oddly Familiar to Observers from the East

As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”

Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.

However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”

Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.

The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.

“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”

Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of force.

But since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’

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

Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.

In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.

“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.

Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.

“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”

“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.

Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars 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 prompted parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.

On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.

There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”

Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”

Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad