I live and work in mainland China, and the government here pisses me off. Yeah, i am a foreigner, but this is my home. I pay taxes here. I deserve to have my voice heard. The Chinese government is trash.

Because i am a foreigner the worst that could happen from me voicing such an opinion is the government doesn't renew my work visa. For Han, it could affect their social credit rating. For ethnic minorities it could land them or their families in "reeducation camps".

That's the trick of authoritarian regimes. If you just shut up and do whatever the government says, they won't bother you (unless you are rich enough to bother extorting). But if you make a noise, you are screwed. That's the reason why everyone you talk to is allegedly happy with the regime. It's not in their interests to be anything else.

I travel to mainland China very frequently for my company, however I don't pay taxes there so maybe my opinion should be weighed a little differently.

The people I talk generally genuinely are really happy with the regime though. People respect the hell out of Xi, and faith in the central government combined with the Maoist nationalism that still prevails as the dominant form of identity for most mainland Chinese you see the average citizen that really has no criticisms of the government.

I've had conversations with Chinese people before about the American bipartisan system and free speech vs the Chinese counterparts and usually they come to this conclusion: "Americas system works for America, Chinas system works for China. If people could say whatever they want here there would be much more trouble, if there were multiple competing political parties they would be at each others throats in a way that makes Americas current polarization look like a beautiful political climate".

Let what works for China continue to work for China, and what works for us continue to work for us. People, cultures, and ideas are different depending on where and how you were raised. The ideas that made the west great don't necessarily work for everyone.

I am not sure what class of people you tend to speak to when you visit, but in my experience the mindset you are describing is something mostly held by a subset of upper middle class Chinese who have enjoyed prosperity under Xi and don't want to rock the boat.

While living here i have spoken to plenty of people who do not parrot the party line. Even in the middle class there are a lot who don't like it when the government censors their shows or deletes well-loved memes. In fact, that is one of the more common grievances i've heard from the middle class here. This is a group of people who can comfortably afford VPN, but they'd still prefer not to have to.

In the working class people seem less concerned about censorship as a moral issue, but it still negatively impacts their lives. There is a real resentment of the corruption that is rife in the party and amongst the elites. Censorship means the working class can't talk about it outside the dinner table and they can't mobilize. Rural people get a raw deal on education and they know it. The poor are upset about rising income inequality and gentrification.

Migrant workers in many larger cities still don't get hukou (residence), so they cannot get healthcare, their kids can't attend public schools, they do not qualify for public housing and so on. Their lives are precarious. Entire neighborhoods can be marked for demolition and there is no avenue for protest because the tenants don't count as residents anyway.

Meanwhile the government constantly crack down on the lower class - shutting down food stalls, kicking out street vendors, fining delivery drivers and so on. I can assure you that people on the receiving end of this aren't as thrilled with the regime as the ones who can afford an iPhone and an apartment in a gated community.

Still, let's address the "Chinese exceptionalism" argument. The idea that China needs socialism "with Chinese characteristics" is CPC propaganda, not some innate truth. It can be debunked simply by looking across the strait at Taiwan, where there is a majority (Han) Chinese country that operates perfectly fine with a democracy and no censorship. For sure, the whole island has less people in it than Shanghai, but the proof is there: Chinese people can thrive in a free state. Tens of millions of ethnic Chinese live in democratic countries all over the world and don't pine for the days of living under authoritarianism.

There is no doubt that East Asian culture is different to western culture, but it's not that much different. People still like to be able to talk about things they care about, read about what's actually happening in their neighborhood, and express grievances when they see injustice. Although most Chinese tolerate the current situation, i think it's misleading to imply that there is full-throated support of the status quo. My personal feeling is people would be very pleased if the government were to become more transparent and less authoritarian.

While the details are different, it's interesting how many of these criticisms can be applied to the United States as well.

The government here also has significant problems with management of immigration and with ownership of neighborhoods; the words used are different, Americans call it "gentrification," but the effect is the same when an entire population in a city is displaced from the place they live because they cannot afford the housing. Cities also kick out street vendors, fine delivery drivers, and so on via the network of laws around zoning, habitation, and usage. And the poor in the US are also concerned about rising income inequality and gentrification.

I think I'm inclined to agree that the cultures are not that much different. And many Americans accept or advocate for this status quo also.

This is exactly my feeling after having lived here a few years. There are a small number of true believers who legitimately believe the CPC propaganda, but i think a far greater proportion of society is more like those who in the west consider themselves to be centrists or "small-c conservatives". That is, people who prefer not to rock the boat, stay out of politics, keep things going how they are etc. Usually those are people who already have an okay (if not great) life, so i can see their motivation for not advocating for change.

> Who are we as westerners to say that our system of governance is better than theirs?

Nobody is advocating overthrowing Xi Jinping. But if you're in America, benefiting from the freedoms afforded to Americans (and their fruits), it's fair to ask you don't undermine those values at home or abroad.

Is it also fair to ask a company that does business in a country to not undermine the values of that country?

> ...I work with a lot of people in mainland China and no one has any problems with the government, they stick to their own business and are doing pretty damn well.

The topic of this subthread is not the attitudes of mainland Chinese, it's the attitudes of mainland Chinese who have immigrated to work at Google for economic reasons. I have friends who came from mainland China, and have talked to them about how their attitudes have changed over time. They don't all stay fixed in the officially-sanctioned mainland mindset.

> Obviously this could change one day but thats not our job as non-chinese citizens to decide.

So you're saying if someone is happy with something at least in part because they've been lied to, it's wrong for someone to interfere with their attitudes by trying to tell them the truth?

I find China's productivity impressive. We can observe that wealth is increasing for a big part of the population and that is a good thing!

Still the test for me is how a society treats its weakest members. And in China, one is severely restricted to even talk about its weakest members! That hampers everybody in knowing how they're doing. In light of the information we outsiders have, the censorship is hurting these people. I'm not willing to accept this oppression as a matter Chinese citizens are best equipped to decide when they are not allowed to learn the facts.

> I know you guys are going to want to crucify me for saying a lot of this

thankfully for you, you live in a place where you can't be put in prison for expressing an unpopular idea.