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It may be that 1984 was inspired in part by real-life events. But to say anything is "straight out of 1984" is absurd on the face of it. 1984 is not a documentary, it is one non-linguist's politically-charged fictional novel. Newspeak never existed.

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When people say something is straight out of 1984, they mean that it's something that'd be perfectly in-character for the totalitarian government from that book to do. I don't see anything absurd about saying that.

1984 Was a criticism of the Soviet system and totalitarianism in general, and China was, at least in the first decade, heavily inspired by the USSR and its tactics --so there would be overlap.

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