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

When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”

Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.

But in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”

Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.

The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.

“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”

Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.

However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.

‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’

The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.

A former police officer, turned CCP critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.

Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.

“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

Deng’s pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.

“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.

Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”

“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”

The government's purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.

Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.

Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.

Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”

Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad