The America During the New Administration Feels Oddly Recognizable to Observers from the East

When the standup comedian, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”

The comedian, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, 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 notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”

Her fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.

The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.

“The United States is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”

Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit absent the same levels of violence.

However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.

‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’

The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.

A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, having fled China due to harassment from officials.

Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.

“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.

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

“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.

Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”

“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”.

Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”

The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.

On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.

There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.

Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”

The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”

Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad