[Chaebixi]

> How do normal Chinese people feel about the things that go on?

That can be really hard to find out. Chinese culture looks down on people who criticize their own group in front of outsiders. So it's bad to truthfully criticize your family in front of a neighbor, even if you do it at home, and similarly bad to truthfully criticize your country in front of a foreigner. For an example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_spee.... That student was ripped apart and called a traitor in regular media and social media, even though a lot of the things she said were true and often complained about. Add mass censorship to the mix, which denies access to honest options shared among the Chinese themselves, and it gets to be extremely difficult to get an accurate sense of true Chinese public opinion.

There are also other confounding factors: such as the CCP not emphasizing the distinction between the the government and the nation. Lots of people might not realize "you can love your country and hate your government" at the same time.

[kika]

> "you can love your country and hate your government"

Reminds me of Russia very much. Self-proclaimed "patriots" standard response to any critics of government is "you just hate everything Russian".

[stcredzero]

Generalized:

Self-proclaimed [X] standard response to any critics of [X] is "you just hate everything [X]".

I think it's a standard self-defense mechanism for any meme in the Dawkins sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

[ShabbosGoy]

What a nightmarish reality to live in. You can’t trust your own parents, friends, neighbors, etc.

[Chaebixi]

> What a nightmarish reality to live in. You can’t trust your own parents, friends, neighbors, etc.

I think you missed my point. That's inaccurate and not what I intended to communicate.

My point was that Chinese can complain about their country among themselves, but there are social taboos against doing the same thing among foreigners. The implication is that when a foreigner asks a Chinese person what they really think about their country, they'll probably get a whitewashed version rather than their true feelings.