I have criticized China, you can dig around on my Hexbear account if you really like and find that (@GarbageShoot)*, but China isn’t nearly as afraid of criticism as the “literally 1984” redditors say, it just has a practical sensitivity over issues of sovereignty that they fail to understand as part of a coherent ideology other than hyper-defensiveness (go figure, Redditors are politically illiterate).

China is a very diverse place with a wide spectrum of ideology – most of which I disagree with, going by rough estimations based on recent statements from their central committee. Speaking in terms of meaningful factions that have sway above the municipal level, I’d say they are much more diverse than the US in this respect, since the US is characterized more by the harshness of disagreement than the actual extremity of differences in overall policy. If we imagine Chinese politics on a spectrum from “Maoism” to “some hodgepodge of reactionary antiquarianism and desire to be a western vassal again, plus religious zealotry**” where the former is a 1 and the latter is a 10, our friend Xi seems to be at maybe a 4, I’m at about 3. I’m not a full-on ultra but I think there’s some right-deviation going on (not as much as in past decades, admittedly). Are you following?

It feels a little unfair to dismiss me as a “tanky,” I don’t think I called you names, but at least you aren’t being too mean beyond that. What do you mean “patriate”? That’s something that countries do, as far as I can tell.

*I am completely confident that you won’t actually find the remarks I’m talking about, but I think you’ll trust me that they are there.

**This last part is mainly among rightist minority groups rather than the Han Chinese rightists, who mainly stick to the first two categories.