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

When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”

Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.

But in the year after Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”

Wang’s fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.

Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.

“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”

Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.

But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’

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

Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from the authorities.

Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.

“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

His backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.

“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.

The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”

“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, typically, 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 reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”

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

On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.

There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad