I miss the Internet in early-2000's China. Not as many sites were blocked and everyone was much more open-minded as the undereducated chauvinists did not yet acquire reliable Internet access. Nowadays everyone has a smartphone and it has enabled the chauvinists and other radicals to voice their opinions online, only this time they are actually emboldened by the nation which has risen in the last 30 years to become a serious competitor against the current superpower nation that is the US.
China has achieved amazing progress thanks to market reforms and entrepreneurship but certain aspects are continuously regressing under Xi's term which will last for the forseeable future. Private sector confidence is at an all-time low due to state media editorials calling for more state control and boosting state-owned corporations. There has been more and more censorship orders aimed at reducing "Western influence" regardless of whether they are politics-related. More and more Chinese citizens are travelling abroad yet their beliefs in the "Chinese system" only gets re-affirmed by mistakenly thinking that China's success is completely dependent on authoritarianism. I don't agree with fervently supporting the current regime which is oppressive, brutal, antidemocratic, and still corrupt; nor do I agree with painting an entire nation and its people as some sort of evil reincarnate for the sake of a new Cold War. I don't have the knowledge or capability to offer a solution and I am just overall disappointed at the current state of affairs.
China has achieved amazing progress thanks to market reforms and entrepreneurship but certain aspects are continuously regressing under Xi's term which will last for the forseeable future. Private sector confidence is at an all-time low due to state media editorials calling for more state control and boosting state-owned corporations. There has been more and more censorship orders aimed at reducing "Western influence" regardless of whether they are politics-related. More and more Chinese citizens are travelling abroad yet their beliefs in the "Chinese system" only gets re-affirmed by mistakenly thinking that China's success is completely dependent on authoritarianism. I don't agree with fervently supporting the current regime which is oppressive, brutal, antidemocratic, and still corrupt; nor do I agree with painting an entire nation and its people as some sort of evil reincarnate for the sake of a new Cold War. I don't have the knowledge or capability to offer a solution and I am just overall disappointed at the current state of affairs.