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

When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”

The comedian, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.

But in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”

Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.

The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.

“America is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”

Ever since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.

However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.

‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’

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

Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.

Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.

“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

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

“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.

Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”

“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.

Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”

The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.

Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.

Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.

An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”

Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad