The Sinophilic perspective is surreal and revealing at the same time. I'm legitimately amazed no one explicitly called these statements out:
The only problem I see is that these people will not enjoy listening to criticism, justified or otherwise, about China especially if they are Chinese nationals.
Someone compared China to Nazi Germany. While I disagree with that, I am sure you'd be hard pressed to find a German who hates the Nazis or hates Germany in the 1930s.
A vast majority of Germans today vehemently hate the Nazis and Germany in the 1930s to the degree that "avoiding Nazism" is one of their primary voting policies; you can predict German voting patterns based on their perceptions of a party being authoritarian, and this is a major component of the Eternal Merkel staying in charge despite rapid policy changes (she is viewed as a 'soft power' leader). This aversion is the
normal reaction to authoritarianism you would expect from a free people. When you lose your rights once, you are loath to lose them again. A portion of the Chinese do no react this way because they have still yet to attain status as truly free peoples, in a serial decay of empire after empire all the way to the modern CCP Dynasty. Taiwan is so militant exactly because they are what's left of Chinese who have tasted independence, and the difference in mindset is obvious. Overseas Chinese (mainlander expats) via the Bamboo Network enjoy decadent, barely earned Western lifestyles but despite the reality before them, and the fruits of that reality they pluck, have been taught that the locals are "backwards," and that exploiting them to feed the starving CCP engine with their repatriations is just and reasonable. They are, more than anyone else, modern Colonials.
I can't imagine anyone viewing "fond memories of tyrants" (i.e. Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and the rest of the 20th century soc brigade) as a normal, reasonable thing.
I am assuming that you consider complaints about their almost Yuan Dynasty style affirmative action favouring minorities at the expense of the majority Han to be criticism.
Or how inefficient their government is in dealing with the day to day municipal problems.
Or asking why people the Chinese consider traitors like Fang Fang who penned the Wuhan Diary to be still under the employ of the state sponsored Writer's Association or 作协.
No, these are not "criticisms of China." All three of these examples are pro-CCP "criticisms" that are officially sanctioned and tow the Red Line.
Whining about "affirmative action" in the form of making schools and "education camps" in minority regions that have not been allowed to
make their own schools is beneficial to the government, because it gens up the idea that "Chinese do not want affirmative action," even though this action is taking place because the CCP's reign is (allegedly) contingent on delivering the many promises of its Communist platform. Shirking these responsibilities for ethnic minorities while taking their land and resources is callous and very Western, but if the Chinese "want it"...
Whining about local administration inefficiency is a way to renege on the idea that "your party is local," a lot of people don't realize how modular and local Chinese governance is. By allowing the public to complain about having local administration and positing centralized CCP control as a better alternative, they justify seizure or restructuring to have more favored party members in charge, or reformatting regions with fewer local authorities, despite this breaking promises to outlying villages made decades ago. This sort of gerrymandering and exploitation is also very Western, but if the Chinese "want it"...
Whistleblowing is obviously unpopular with the CCP, they have a track record to prove it. If there's a perception of public vitriol towards whistleblowers, it makes it easier for the CCP to punish them, and harder for the many who agree with or believe the whistleblower to speak out. One-sided censorship is the theme of all three of these examples, but this one's more Russia's camp than the West in general.
It's hard for people to be negative of the state when they don't know what to be negative about (due to censoring those with legitimate complaints, but enabling those who have complaints convenient to the CCP). Silencing the people who are
most affected, and most concerned are silenced- like ethnic minorities, municipal administrators who have to kowtow to the party, and "traitors" (lol) like Fang Fang who penned the Wuhan Diary and has been startlingly quiet ever since. Sure, Fang Fang was never properly disappeared, but I do wonder where Fang Bin is, ay? Did he exert the wrong type of criticism?
These are the sorts of statements you should have your eye out for when dealing with
actual Wumao. They say shit like this all the time, entirely unintentionally, because they only go to the Western internet on brief, pay-per-hour jaunts, and have zero clue what Westerners actually do, how they live, what they think, or what they believe.