The America Under the New Administration Feels Strangely Familiar to Those Watching from the East

As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”

The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.

But in the year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”

Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.

The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.

“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”

Since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.

But since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.

‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’

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

A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.

In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.

“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.

Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.

“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech 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 the East today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.

The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”

“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.

Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”

The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.

On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.

There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.

An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”

Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”

Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad