This is manifestly false.

My wife grew up in Shanghai, and you'll have to go quite some distance to find someone more critical of the PRC and CCP than she is. And it's with good reason.

She grew up during the cultural revolution, and was largely raised by her grandmother because literally every other person in her extended family was in prison or work camp, not because of anything they had actually done wrong, but for political reasons because the whole family was blacklisted.

And that's not just the old days. Her father died as a direct result of Chinese Covid policy. During the pandemic her cousins still in the country would ask her (on Skype) "is X true?", and largely their perception of what was going on was false. She would exfiltrate encrypted news reports to them - until those started getting blocked. Her dad's estate still has affairs that need to be resolved, but we've decided not to return to China until Xi is gone, as it's just not safe. It doesn't get much airplay, but there are currently a couple of hundred Americans who are being illegally detained in China right now. It's not worth the risk.

My first trip to China was about 30 years ago, shortly after we got married. And back then, I would have said that you were right. Honestly, it felt like for the average person in their day-to-day-lives, the Chinese were less under the governmental thumb than we are. People from the countryside would bring their produce into the city to sell, or cook dumplings and buns to sell on the side of the street - stuff that in America we'd have to get permits for. It seemed that the oligarchy had an understanding with the people: let us control the big picture, and we'll look the other way for the little things. But Chinese politics is a pendulum swinging very widely. From Tienanmen Square and Tank Man, it had swung quite a bit the other way. But today, it's come back 180-degrees. Xi is really trying for a Cultural Revolution 2.0.

These impressions largely match what I hear from other Chinese immigrants - except for Party members, who tend not to want to talk about it at all. I'm afraid that you've been listening to too much propaganda.

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3rodents 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

“there are currently a couple of hundred Americans who are being illegally detained in China right now”

Compared to the U.S. which currently has no foreign nationals detained illegally?

Pick any country and you will find political dissidents. The existence of angry emigrants is not evidence that a country is worse than we could ever imagine.

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CWuestefeld 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The fact that the USA and others are also trending authoritarian isn't really relevant. The point I was trying to make is that people have legit fears of the PRC government, enough so that legitimate business like settling a deceased parent's affairs isn't sufficient to convince people to enter the country.

You haven't addressed at all the parts about blacklisting whole families for political reasons, or horrible return-to-normal policies for covid-19 three years ago, or the general pendulum-swing-back-to-evil trend.

	▲	fasbiner an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I don't doubt you, but what if someone's else's wife felt differently. Would that counteract your wife? Or is your wife special in an objective sense and her intuitions about hypotheticals are more valid than anyone else's? Your wife feels a certain way and wanted to avoid a certain hypothetical. But since it didn't happen, we have no way of knowing how relevant these feelings are. How can we address blacklisting and covid response if you are insisting that any comparison isn't relevant and that we should evaluate it with no baseline?

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netsharc an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Sheesh, an actual Whataboutism. The fact that "the US does it too!" won't help Grandparent poster/his wife if they get detained in China. GP says "there are currently a couple of hundred Americans who are being illegally detained in China right now", most likely they are dual citizens, or were born in China, and from China's point of view, one can't lose the Chinese citizenship, and they're detaining their own citizens.

	▲	fasbiner an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I would also like to know if these are dual citizens or not. I think it would be newsworthy if hundreds of US passport holders who do not have chinese passports also were being held in China and not charged with any crime and unable to access consular services. Sensationalizing claims then qualifying them later is inherently dishonest.

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vkou an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Her father died as a direct result of Chinese Covid policy.

Is it generally normal to hold countries accountable for every person that dies due to their COVID policies?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_by_country_a...

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hungryhobo 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

i don't doubt your experience, but just know it might be skewed and not representative of everyone's opinions

the sense i get from my chinese friends are that the CCP is an annoying parent but they understand the challenges both domestic and international and largely agree with the compromises

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elefanten an hour ago | parent [-]

How do they feel about and respond when asked about the Taiwan question?

Do they either clam up or act like it's a mortal insult to suggest that an independent democratic nation should not live in fear of impending violent conquest?

Because that's the kind of reaction that makes the reports of "happy life, all's good" a little harder to digest.

Not saying that's a unanimous opinion / response, of course. But it certainly seems to be the default.

	▲	fasbiner an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The majority of US support for Taiwan and it's current situation is owed entirely to supporting a military junta from the mainland that massacred the local Taiwainese who objected to it and suppressed civil society. Are you saying you would've been neutral on an invasion of Taiwan before 1985 or so, since it wasn't a democracy?