The America During the New Administration Seems Strangely Familiar to Observers from China

When the standup comedian, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”

Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.

However over the past year since the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”

Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.

The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.

“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”

Since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.

But after the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’

The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.

A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.

Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.

“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

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

“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.

The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”

“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.

Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”

The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.

Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.

Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.

An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”

Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad