I can see where you're coming from, and I suppose it's our different life experiences that cause us to have different perspectives.

I grew up extremely poor and despite being upper-middle class now, I know my past influences how I see things.

Also, my experience working in China and with other Mainland Chinese just paint a different picture than what people tend to see in the Western media. (I'll add that I made it a point to avoid the expat bubble, so perhaps my perspective there is different from other expats as well.)

> I would also point out that the prison (government) created the great famine (that made you hungry).

Just to clarify, the government that created the great famine (Mao) is very different than the one that started to feed the people (Deng)

In fact, the Mao tried to have Deng assassinated several times.

So yeah, I would say it's an improvement since the CCP is now saying the Cultural Revolution was wrong.

I guess I see it as progress. If you take a look at countries like South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, all three were dictatorships until the 90s, when their quality of life improved enough for them to turn to democracies.

So I guess we'll just have to see where the Chinese people take themselves.