The United States Under the New Administration Feels Oddly Recognizable to Those Watching from the East

As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”

Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.

However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”

Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.

The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.

“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”

Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.

However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’

The most profound similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.

Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled China because of pressure from officials.

Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.

“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.

Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.

“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.

Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”

“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”

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

Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.

There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”

The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad