Foreigner living in China here - It is rather different to how western media and government outlets make it seem. Certainly it has its flaws, it's not a perfect country, and they certainly dont see freedom of speech as western countries do, but even in that area, there's more nuance than the west considers [for instance: in 2022 after the second extreme lockdown, in December when covid cases were rising and people were worried about getting locked down yet again, people were in the streets protesting and pretty much immediately the government lifted all restrictions - also it's not like western governments are terribly consistent on this issue (see: any and all protests for Palestinian liberation / against the Israeli genocide over the last year)].
我是一个住在中国的外国人——这里的情况与西方媒体和政府所描述的非常不同。中国当然有它的缺点，它不是一个完美的国家，而且他们在言论自由方面的看法确实与西方国家不同，但即使在这一领域，也存在比西方所认为的更多的细微差别【例如：2022 年第二次极端封控后，12 月当新冠病例增加、人们担心再次被封锁时，民众走上街头抗议，政府几乎立即取消了所有限制——而且西方政府在这方面也不是特别一致（参见：过去一年中所有支持巴勒斯坦解放/反对以色列种族灭绝的抗议活动）】。

Labor law is in theory really friendly to workers, but in practice that doesn't always work out - it really depends on a case by case basis.
劳动法理论上对工人非常友好，但在实践中并不总是如此——这真的取决于具体案例。

The really big thing I dont think most westerners understand is that in terms of my day to day life, my freedoms are pretty much exactly the same as they were back in my home country - no real difference. People do the same things in life pretty much, whatever it is you like to do for your free time, you can find a community of people doing that, just like anywhere. And sure, there's a lot of CCTV in the metros and elsewhere, but guess what? There's surveillance in the US too all over, and we all know google knows more about us than it has any right to. [editing to add: my quality of life is also rather higher here than it would be in my home country due to my profession]
我认为大多数西方人没有意识到的真正重要的事情是，在日常生活中，我的自由和我在祖国时几乎完全一样——没有什么真正的区别。人们在生活中做的事情基本上差不多，无论你喜欢做什么来打发时间，你都能找到一群人也在做同样的事情，就像在任何地方一样。当然，地铁和其他地方有很多监控摄像头，但你知道吗？美国也到处都是监控，我们都知道谷歌对我们了如指掌，甚至超过了它应有的范围。[补充一下：由于我的职业，我在这里的生活质量比在祖国要高得多。]

I had a law class with a Chinese professor regarding international transactions. It was enlightening.
我上过一位中国教授关于国际交易的法律课程，让我受益匪浅。

For my paper, I studied the differences in labor unions, for example. In the United States, unions have a structural, enforced adversarial position against employers to prevent collusion. In China, unions serve much more of a mediating, conflict resolution role.
比如，为了我的论文，我研究了工会之间的差异。在美国，工会在结构上与雇主处于对立地位，这是为了防止串通而强制执行的。而在中国，工会更多地扮演调解和解决冲突的角色。

Much of what you hear is grossly exaggerated propaganda, but it sometimes comes from China approaching issues differently. Paired with a predisposition to find bad intent, this can easily result in unjust condemnation.
你听到的很多内容都是被大大夸大的宣传，但有时这确实是因为中国处理问题的方式不同。再结合一种倾向于发现恶意的先入为主的观点，这就很容易导致不公正的谴责。

Another anecdote. There was a mayor of a booming Chinese city. He was very positive and energetic, and had a documentary made about him. When they followed up, he was dead. Executed by the government in a short amount of time for ties to organized crime. To the west, that may seem extreme. But to the Chinese, it must seem very strange that our politicians can do the same and be hardly impacted at all.
另一个轶事。有一个蓬勃发展的中国城市的市长。他非常积极、充满活力，并且有一部关于他的纪录片。当他们跟进时，他已经死了。因与有组织犯罪有关，他在短时间内被政府处决。对于西方人来说，这可能看起来很极端。但对中国人来说，我们的政治家做了同样的事情却几乎毫发无损，这一定显得非常奇怪。

China is, at its heart, very practical. Their communist party may do things that bemuse socialists in the west, but the Chinese government will not overly restrain themselves for the sake of theory. Like any powerful country, they have good and bad points, from our perspective. Take them for what they are. Do not put them on a pedestal, but neither believe the endless propaganda.
中国本质上是非常务实的。他们的共产党可能会做一些让西方社会主义者感到困惑的事情，但中国政府不会为了理论而过度束缚自己。像任何强大的国家一样，从我们的角度来看，他们有优点和缺点。接受他们本来的样子。不要把他们放在神坛上，也不要相信无休止的宣传。

I'm 69 years old and the US media and other US supervisors-of-thought have always filled USAns brains with wild caricatures of how supposedly awful life is for ordinary people in the US's "Official Enemies". In the old days, it was the Soviet Union the DDR and Eastern Europe. And the US would proclaim life to be wonderful in the countries it regarded as it friends - Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua (under Somoza) Iran (under the Shah) Philippines (under Marcos I) South Vietnam (under Diem) - Spain (under Franco) even though it was the US's "friends" who were murdering union organizers social democrats, socialists, defenders of the poor, and anyone with the slightest sympathies toward them - literally by the millions.
我今年 69 岁，美国媒体和其他美国思想监督者总是用疯狂的夸张描绘来填充美国人的大脑，说普通人在美国“官方敌人”国家的生活有多么糟糕。过去，这些国家是苏联、东德和东欧。而美国则宣称它认为是朋友的国家生活很美好——印度尼西亚、智利、阿根廷、巴西、尼加拉瓜（在索摩查统治下）、伊朗（在沙阿统治下）、菲律宾（在马科斯一世统治下）、南越（在吴庭艳统治下）——西班牙（在佛朗哥统治下），即使美国的“朋友们”正在谋杀工会组织者、社会民主党人、社会主义者、穷人的捍卫者以及任何对这些人稍有同情的人——实际上达到数百万之多。

For a good up to date look at of present day China and its incredibly futuristic infrastructure and cities, go to Bald and Bankrupt's Channel - he has very little bad to say about it!
想要了解当下中国的全貌，及其令人难以置信的未来派基础设施和城市，可以去 Bald and Bankrupt 的频道——他对此几乎没有负面评价！

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGc3DM1qAf8