It’s complex and my interaction is mainly with fairly educated and well off Shanghainese who aspire to have their children leave China. The Fudan to Harvard pipeline, as it were.

People are proud of what China has accomplished, but many educated Chinese do want more. They understand that the party holds them back, and that a lot of oppressive Chinese policy is driven by, “protect the sins of the father” stuff. They are thoughtful, philosophical and very aware of the world outside both Shanghai and China.

I will admit that my language skill is nowhere near good enough to really get into it, so some of this is definitely vibes. In a weird way, urban Chinese have a lot in common with older US neocons, in that they hope globalization lifts them up, but they are also wary of western liberalism and its perceived desire to destroy their cultural folk heroes. Even though they understand their heroes are flawed, they don’t want to see them through a westernized lens. Again, these topics are really pushing my fluency.

Most of them are legitimately scared of talking about certain topics. My grandfather in law was an academic, and was persecuted during the cultural revolution and lost a hand at some point but nobody will discuss how. He told some of the story on his death bed but I do not understand his dialect well enough to know more than it was maybe a farm accident, but that might be a euphemism.