I've always wanted to ask this to someone who experienced China. Since you've lived in China, I'm asking.
How do the normal people feel about the CCP? I'm guessing the CCP must be very popular given the unprecedented rate they reduced poverty in their country and raised the overall living standards of people. But still, as people move up the economic ladder, they would start aspiring things like personal rights, freedom of speech, etc., in any country. Many south east asian nations which are rich economies now did experience a period of authoritarian rule in the past but they gradually transitioned into a free democracy afterwards as they developed. Everyone knows it's hard to criticise the CCP in public in the country, but does the average Chinese citizen ever talk even in a slightly critical tone of CCP in personal space, say with friends. Have you ever come across such people or is it all hush hush when it comes to talking about sensitive topics in China?
The CCP were immensely clever in enacting an educational system during the 70s and 80s which allowed them to condition the populace in such a way that any criticism of the state or questioning the authority of the state is strictly taboo.
The system also suppresses any form of critical thinking at a young age, whereby children are taught rules and regulations which they have to memorize and adhere to.
As an aside, this method of learning ties in well with the inherent way of learning the Chinese language, with the need to memorize characters and tones at a young age, which is vastly different to how someone learns English or French or even Urdu.
I found that the common Chinese person is conditioned to not argue or question the authority of the state, in much the same way people in Pakistan are conditioned to not argue or question the sanctity of religion. Even in private settings, people would generally be fearful to criticize the government.
That is not to say in any way that Chinese people are unintelligent or lack critical faculties to pose existential questions about life, but the culture rips out that natural inclination and the vast majority of people consider it normal to believe that the state is all-knowing and powerful. In fact those existential questions invariably occur when the state flounders, such as at the beginning of the pandemic last year.
It is at those moments that the state's vast intelligence machinery (i.e. surveillance network) ramps up to snub out any criticism (including private or even that implied in jest) given that all social media networks are carefully tracked.
The level of repression in big towns is greater than the case in rural areas or small provincial towns away from the centre, which makes sense as the overall idea for the CCP is to control the centre at all costs while the peripheries virtually take care of themselves with patronage and opportunities for graft from state-owned enterprises and infrastructure projects for the local officials.
When the party makes a mistake, people tend to take out their anger at a local level i.e. at government officials operating at provincial level, given that the writ of the central apparatus is unquestioned and beyond reproach.
