Visiting China and seeing how the Chinese live won't make you think it's a beacon of democracy, but it will also show you that the Western caricature of China is horrendously distorted.
Fundamentally, the question you have to ask yourself is: if China really is the hellhole that's described in Western media, why do most people in China have such a positive view of their country? The facile answer is that Chinese people must be brainwashed, but consider the difficulty of brainwashing 1.4 billion people who experience China every single day, vs. the relative ease of brainwashing (or lightly rinsing the brains of) people who have no direct experience of China.
Fundamentally, the question you have to ask yourself is: if China really is the hellhole that's described in Western media, why do most people in China have such a positive view of their country? The facile answer is that Chinese people must be brainwashed, but consider the difficulty of brainwashing 1.4 billion people who experience China every single day, vs. the relative ease of brainwashing (or lightly rinsing the brains of) people who have no direct experience of China.