As a Chinese, I feel exactly the same way as your friend does.

The Chinese government thinks they can lie however they want to its people and to the outside world, because there are language and internet barriers.

For example, they claimed to be neutral regarding the ongoing war, but they are spreading pro-war misinformation via state owned media, and teaching pro-war ideologies at school.

People now are trying to translate their lies through the big translation movement To expose their evil doings . https://twitter.com/tgtm_official

And it worked, they winded down the pro-war education plan, at least publicly.