As I said earlier, I never claimed that China has no problems, and I welcome genuine efforts to improve the human rights situation in China. But current efforts are simply not genuine and are merely geopolitical attacks disguised as human rights concerns.

To make a comparison: the US also has many grave human rights abuses, including jailing people for saying "too interesting" things. But the US is not painted as some human rights abuse hellhole. It's clear that in the minds of many, human rights abuses in western countries can be bad but are at least redeemable or even incidental, while Chinese sins are inherent, systematic and unforgivable.

And again: here you hold political rights as the highest goal. I dispute this notion. This "one might be singing a different tune" can be reflected right back at you: if you've experienced how it is like to live in a country that has had 150 years of war and poverty, where eating your next meal is not guaranteed, with western "democratic" countries looting your treasures (and still having them on display in foreign museums today) back then when your country was itself dabbling in introducing democracy and republicanism, then maybe you would value safety and economic prosperity way more than you do now.

Said differently: when you are poor, you are not free, period. The ability to vote has no value on an empty stomach with thugs roaming the streets. The Chinese government has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, which is also a big human rights improvement. That does not excuse bad things, but it's worth putting things in perspective, something which many refuse to do because few are willing to hold an honest conversation about China.

> By the way, a decade ago, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev said that Russia had “democracy with Russian attributes,” and that Russia had to be understood on its own terms. Of course, it was just a convenient fig leaf for the erosion of freedoms and consolidation of power happening behind the scenes. We can all see where Russia is today.

Whatever problems you have with Russia has got nothing to do with China. Saying that "X has problem A, so Y must also have problem A" is a fallacy. Correlation is not causation.

> I am glad Chinese people are still able to affect policy, but I wonder how long that will last.

The ability to affect policy has increased over years, not decreased. In the past 15 years, government has improved systems to consult citizen.

This notion of yours have been around for at least 10 years. But when you ask Chinese how many of them would rather live in 25-30 years ago, you will not find many.

> If there is a war with Taiwan, will the government tolerate dissent?

You got this entirely backwards. Many people in China support reunification with Taiwan. If Xi Jingping announces today that he accepts Taiwanese independence, then he'll be overthrown tomorrow and replaced with another government that supports reunification.

Also, dropping this here: https://asiatimes.com/2022/11/harvard-guru-gives-biden-a-d-f...
Dr. William Overholt, Harvard professor: "we are creating the problem that we think we’re trying to deter."
In other words, all this talk about China invading Taiwan, and taking actions to "deter" China from invading Taiwan, incentivizes China to invade — because people fundamentally misread China's relationship with Taiwan. But the US government knows this and is deliberately stirring things up, breaking decades of diplomatic agreements, in order to goad China into shooting first so that the US can have a war with China while claiming moral superiority.