The America Under the New Administration Seems Oddly Recognizable to Those Watching from the East

As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”

Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.

However in the year since the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”

Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.

Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.

“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”

Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of force.

But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’

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

A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.

In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.

“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.

Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.

“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”

“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.

Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”

The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.

Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era 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 declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.

An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”

Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad