[King-Aaron]

I feel that in the west we have been fed a version of China that doesn't necessarily reflect the true image of the country.

[pepperoni_pizza]

Does the true version have slave labor, reeducation camps for minorities, needing permission to travel, running protestors over with tanks, and gutter oil by any chance?

[ahartmetz]

There are these things, but also that daily life does not feel very oppressive at all. Very different from Soviet Russia or the GDR.

[avhception]

This could be mostly due to the fact that China has been on the rise, economically. So people mostly see the system working, and mostly in their favor. We'll see the real oppression once that changes.

[dumb1224]

I don't think it's anyone (lay person)'s fault. As a chinese person moved to European in the early 2000s for the longest time I wouldn't touch a chinese product (although I'm very proud of the progress made in terms of industrialisation).

Things changed in 2012 when I bought a 'cheap-ish' Huawei phone, it was nothing of a flagship, no performance but it was really solid product. Very light and well built too. How ironic that was my first ever experience of buying a product exported to Europe.