[seanmcdirmid]

I was at Microsoft China from 2007 to 2016 in Zhongguancun, so I probably had similar experiences to you (we had lots of interns as well from local and nation-wide universities).

Politics eventually comes into play, but it was more likely we would talk about the Great Firewall, or some kid getting arrested by the party police during a rave, things like that. Politics came into play when there was some heated event, like the South China Sea dispute, that someone (usually more nationalistic) was really passionate about in the moment.