The long and loud campaign of Donald J. Trump, and now his re-election as president, have prompted deep divisions among many Chinese who advocate for democracy.

在许多倡导民主的中国人当中，特朗普漫长而声势浩大的竞选活动以及如今他的再度当选引发了深刻的分歧。

Wang Lixiong, a Beijing-based author, has been imprisoned and surveilled for his critical writings about China. The day before the election, he posted on X that Mr. Trump’s political alliance with the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk was worrying: “A Trump presidency combined with Musk’s influence may become a singularity that backfires on democracy.” People responded by condemning him, leaving hateful comments, including ones that wished him death.

居住在北京的作家王力雄因撰写批评中国的文章而遭到监禁和监视。大选前一天，他在X上发帖表示特朗普与科技企业家埃隆·马斯克的政治联盟令人担忧：“川普上台并与马斯克结合也可能成为反噬民主的奇点。”人们的反应是谴责他，留下充满仇恨的评论，甚至有人咒他死。

Luo Yufeng, an online influencer who moved to New York more than a decade ago and posts about the possibilities that freedom brings, has also received abhorrent comments on her X account. She had been posting about her support for Mr. Trump, saying she opposed President Biden’s immigration policies.

十多年前移居纽约的网红罗玉凤也在她的X账户上收到了令人厌恶的评论。她发表了关于自由带来的各种可能性的帖子。她一直在发帖表达对特朗普的支持，称她反对拜登总统的移民政策。

On social media and around dinner tables, businesspeople, intellectuals and scholars I know who have fought side by side for democracy in China since the 1980s have been fighting one another over Mr. Trump. I have adopted a policy for gatherings with friends at my dining table in New York: No talk of American politics when we are eating.

在社交媒体上和餐桌旁，我认识的自上世纪80年代以来一直在为中国的民主并肩作战的商人、知识分子和学者，都在为特朗普而争吵。在纽约，我和朋友们在餐桌上聚会时，有一条规矩：吃饭时不谈美国政治。

I have been thinking a lot about China, democracy and Mr. Trump recently because of “Night Is Not Eternal,” a documentary by Nanfu Wang, a Chinese-born filmmaker I first met over a year ago. The film, which will debut on HBO on Nov. 19, is a moving portrayal of a Cuban activist, Rosa María Payá, who fights for democracy in her home country.

一年多前，我第一次见到了生于中国的电影制作人王男栿。近期，由于她的纪录片《黑夜不会永恒》(Night Is Not Eternal)，我一直在思考很多关于中国、民主和特朗普的事情。这部电影将于11月19日在HBO首播，讲述了古巴活动人士罗莎·玛丽亚·帕雅在自己的祖国为民主而战的感人故事。

The two women met at a film festival in March 2016. Then in their 20s and early 30s, they found they were kindred spirits, having grown up under autocratic governments where speaking out was dangerous.

两人是2016年3月在一个电影节上认识的。当时她们一个20多岁，一个30出头，她们发现两人是同一类人，都在专制政府下长大。在这样的政府治下，畅所欲言是很危险的。

Ms. Wang was intimidated, questioned and assaulted by the police while making films in China. Her family was harassed by the authorities.

王男栿在中国拍电影时受到警察的恐吓、盘问和殴打。她的家人会受到当局的骚扰。

2021年，反对古巴总统米格尔·迪亚斯-卡内尔政府的示威游行在哈瓦那举行。

The film’s main subject, Ms. Payá, is the daughter of Oswaldo Payá, a dissident who was killed by the Cuban government in 2012. She and her family were forced to flee harassment and surveillance.

影片的主角帕雅是2012年被古巴政府杀害的异见人士奥斯瓦尔多·帕雅的女儿。她的家人被迫逃离骚扰和监视。

“Night Is Not Eternal,” which I have screened twice, leaving me in tears, is framed around the shared pursuit of freedom by Cuban and Chinese people. But it also tells a more personal story about what Ms. Wang saw as eroding democratic norms in the United States since Mr. Trump’s 2016 election. She speaks in the film about the birth of her first son in 2017.

《黑夜不会永恒》是一部围绕古巴和中国人民对自由的共同追求而创作的影片，我已看过两次，每次都让我热泪盈眶。但它也讲述了一个更个人化的故事，在王男栿看来，自特朗普2016年当选以来，美国的民主规范正在受到侵蚀。她在影片中讲述了2017年她第一个儿子的出生。

“Becoming a mother changed the way I saw the country where I was living,” Ms. Wang, who now lives in New Jersey, narrates. “Until this moment, I had a casual relationship with America. Once I had a child here, the relationship became permanent and irrevocable. I became involved in this country’s future.”

“成为母亲改变了我对这个国家的看法，”现居新泽西州的王男栿说。“在这之前，我和美国的关系很随意。一旦我在这里有了孩子，我们的关系就变成了永久的，不可撤销的。我开始参与这个国家的未来。”

Shortly after the two women met, Ms. Wang traveled to Havana to film Ms. Payá, who had returned from Miami, where she is living, to coordinate protests with artists and activists.

两人见面后不久，王男栿前往哈瓦那拍摄帕雅，当时后者从她定居的迈阿密回来，与艺术家和活动人士协调抗议活动。

Visiting Cuba, Ms. Wang said, “felt like déjà vu.” She saw many things that resembled China: the revolutionary slogans on the walls, the many portraits of the top leader, the state security officers tailing people and the activists who remove their phone batteries at meetings to avoid surveillance.

王男栿说，访问古巴令她“感觉似曾相识”。她看到了许多与中国相似的东西：墙上的革命标语、许多最高领导人的肖像、国家安全官员跟踪人们，以及在会议上摘下手机电池以躲避监视的活动人士。

Ms. Wang said she had made the documentary because she wondered how people living under authoritarianism could fight for change. The film’s first part focuses on Ms. Payá’s dedication to her cause and the sacrifices she and her family have made. Then it takes a turn. Ms. Wang says in the film that she was astonished to find that Ms. Payá was politically aligned with Mr. Trump.

王男栿说，她之所以制作这部纪录片，是因为她想知道生活在威权制度下的人们如何为变革而斗争。影片的第一部分主要讲述帕雅对自己事业的奉献，以及她和家人所做出的牺牲。然后影片发生了一个转折。王男栿在影片中说，她惊讶地发现，帕雅在政治上与特朗普站在一边。

Ms. Wang said she could not reconcile how Ms. Payá, a committed fighter for freedom, could find common ground with Mr. Trump. The film recounts the Jan. 6, 2021, assault by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol. Ms. Wang asks Ms. Payá whether she believed Mr. Trump really cared about democracy in Cuba.

王男栿说，坚定的自由斗士帕雅如何能与特朗普找到共同点，这让她难以理解。这部电影讲述了2021年1月6日特朗普支持者对美国国会大厦的袭击。王男栿问帕雅她是否相信特朗普真的关心古巴的民主。

帕雅在《黑夜不会永恒》中。

Ms. Payá, speaking on camera, says she would meet with any leader as long as that person could help free Cuban people. Off camera, Ms. Wang says in the film, Ms. Payá told her that she worried that their on-camera conversation could alienate her supporters on both the Republican and Democratic sides.

帕雅在镜头前说，她愿意与任何领导人见面，只要这个人能帮助古巴人民获得自由。王男栿在影片中说，在镜头外，帕雅告诉她，她担心她们在镜头前的谈话可能会疏远她在共和党和民主党内的支持者。

Ms. Wang said she later came to understand Ms. Payá’s pragmatism, though she remained skeptical.

王男栿说，她后来开始理解帕雅的实用主义，尽管她仍然持怀疑态度。

“The U.S.’s own democracy is in a precarious state — how could it be a beacon?” Ms. Wang, who became a naturalized American citizen two years ago, told me. “Pinning your hopes for democratization on another country seems futile.”

“美国自己的民主也在不稳定的状态——它怎么可能成为灯塔呢？”两年前加入美国国籍的王男栿告诉我。“把民主化的希望寄托在其他国家身上似乎是徒劳的。”

I asked Ms. Payá whether she shared Ms. Wang’s despair about the state of U.S. democracy. “There is no resemblance of that in Communist Cuba (or the C.C.P.’s China, for that matter),” she told me in a text message, using the initials for the Chinese Communist Party. “It’s not even apples to oranges; it’s apples to whales.”

我问帕雅，她是否和王男栿一样对美国的民主状况感到绝望。“共产主义古巴（或中共的中国）的民主与美国毫无相似之处，”她在短信中告诉我。“这甚至不是苹果与橘子之别；是鲸鱼和苹果之别。”

On Wednesday, she congratulated Mr. Trump on his “historic victory” in a post on X and sought his support for a free Cuba.

周三，她在X上发帖祝贺特朗普取得了“历史性胜利”，并寻求他对自由古巴的支持。

But Ms. Wang sees a resemblance between Mr. Trump and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, now in his third term as president.

但王男栿认为特朗普与中国领导人习近平之间有相似之处，后者目前已进入国家主席的第三任期。

In the film, Ms. Wang used video footage of Mr. Trump saying: “President Xi, president for life. President for life — that sounds good. Maybe we’re going to have to try it — president for life.” Mr. Xi changed the country’s Constitution in 2018 to effectively set himself to remain president for as long as he wanted. He has cracked down on anyone he perceives as his critic.

在影片中，王男栿引用了特朗普的视频剪辑，他说：“习主席，终身主席。终身主席——听起来不错。也许我们得试试——终身总统”。习近平在2018年修改了国家宪法，实际上将主席任期设定为只要他愿意，就能一直担任下去。对于任何他所认为的批评者，他都会进行严厉打击。

In Ms. Wang’s view, the freedom to choose the leader of one’s own country was what drew her and Ms. Payá, as well as many other Chinese and Cubans, to America.

在王男栿看来，选择自己国家领导人的自由是吸引她和帕雅以及许多其他中国人和古巴人来到美国的原因。

Many Chinese, including members of the worldwide diaspora, support Mr. Trump because they believe he was the key to a necessary hardening of Washington’s policy toward China. Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese legal advocate who sought asylum at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in 2012 and was later brought to the United States by the Obama administration, endorsed Mr. Trump during a speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention. He remains supportive of Mr. Trump.

包括散居世界各地的华人在内，许多中国人都支持特朗普，因为他们认为，华盛顿需要有强硬的对华政策，而特朗普是这种向强硬转变的关键人物。2012年在美国驻华大使馆寻求庇护、后被奥巴马政府带到美国的中国法律倡导者陈光诚在2020年共和党全国代表大会的一次演讲中支持特朗普。如今他仍然支持特朗普。

After Mr. Trump declared his victory early Wednesday, my Chinese social media feeds filled up with the delight of his supporters, as well as criticism of them.

特朗普周三早上宣布获胜后，我的中文社交媒体上满是他的支持者们的喜悦，以及对其他人对这些支持者们的批评。

“Americans are fortunate to have a president like Trump,” an e-commerce businessman with the surname Xiao wrote on WeChat. “And I hope one day I can cast a vote for a ‘Trump’ for my own country.”

“美国人很幸运有特朗普这样的总统，”一位姓肖的电商商人在微信上写道。“我希望有一天我能为我自己的国家投票给一位‘特朗普’。”

2012年，在奥斯瓦尔多·帕雅的葬礼上，罗莎·玛丽亚·帕雅与母亲奥费莉亚·阿塞韦多（左）站在一起。

Some Chinese who rebel against their authoritarian government line up with libertarian thinking of small government and individual autonomy, and are turned off by what many Republicans term cancel culture and identity politics.

一些反对威权政府的中国人赞同小政府和个人自治的自由主义思想，并且排斥许多共和党人所称的取消文化和身份政治。

Yuan Li, a movie star turned activist, posted an article on WeChat after Mr. Trump’s win, criticizing Chinese intellectuals, lawyers and journalists who, she believes, are unfairly critical of Mr. Trump. The post was shared widely.

电影明星出身的活动人士袁立在特朗普获胜后在微信上发表了一篇文章，批评中国知识分子、律师和记者，她认为这些人对特朗普的批评有失公允。这篇文章被广泛转发。

On the other side, some of Mr. Trump’s Chinese critics used social media to share a translation of The New York Times’s editorial board’s opinion article from Wednesday, headlined “America makes a perilous choice.” China’s internet censors usually leave debates about U.S. domestic politics alone, possibly because the tussles over ideas reaffirm the government’s doctrinaire message that democracy is chaotic.

另一方面，特朗普的一些中国批评者在社交媒体上分享了《纽约时报》社论委员会周三发表的一篇评论文章的翻译，标题是《美国做出了一个危险的选择》。中国的互联网审查机构通常不会对有关美国国内政治的辩论进行干预，这可能是因为围绕思想的争论验证了政府想表达的看法，即民主是混乱的。

I asked Ms. Payá, the Cuban activist, how she thinks of the differences in politics that Ms. Wang portrays in her film, especially Ms. Wang’s surprise at her alignment with Mr. Trump. “I believe it’s part of democracy to have different views,” she said. “I do not expect that all my friends think the same as I think.”

我问古巴活动人士帕雅她如何看待王男栿在电影中描绘的政治差异，尤其是她对自己与特朗普结盟的惊讶。“我相信，有不同的观点是民主的一部分，”她说。“我不指望我所有的朋友都和我想法一样。”