The problem with talking about China is how hard it is for any news to get out of that country that they don’t want you to see. I dated for a long time and nearly married someone from the Chinese mainland, and the stories are so sickening of how easy it is to get ‘disappeared’ I mostly blocked them from my memory. Of course Winnie the Pooh (Xi Xinping) has made things considerably worse and worse so I try not to even think about what they pull now, particularly with their infinite number of cameras and AI face recognition to make it impossible for you to be free in any way.
People have tried to protest several times there, but of course the CCP is quick to act against and disappear anyone with that kind of behavior. So a few months ago they had a more covert protest (though obviously it’s going to get found out about) where they simply held up blank pieces of paper as a sign of protest, since they knew they weren’t allowed to say anything bad about the CCP without serious repercussions. Good luck trying to find anyone who did that, as the government went after them and also put some other ridiculous measure in place that I can’t recall off the top of my head.
If you have legit friends in China though, then you can get the skinny on what really goes on over there. Assuming they’re not too scared to even tell you in code since everything is constantly being monitored. They’re disturbingly close to a richer North Korea at this point unfortunately. Definitely don’t believe anyone saying that censorship and detainment isn’t constantly happening though. Criticize the CCP while in China? Good luck ever escaping, and if you have any close friends/family they will absolutely be used as hostages. The CCP will do absolutely everything they can to look good in the public light though, so their extreme tight control over information prevents us from hearing about so many things, and any accident caused by their shoddy construction, if it does get reported, will be said to have a casualty count of 18, when in reality 300+ casualties would be the very minimum possible death toll by the most optimistic possible estimates (like awhile back when an underwater tunnel flooded and you could physically see and count at least five times as many dead bodies from stealth-footage taken than the reported death toll actually was).
Come fucking fight me China. I don’t give a shit.